1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game board apparatus, and more particularly but not by way of limitation, to an instructional board game apparatus for teaching young people and adults the consequences of recreational use and abuse of drugs and alcohol.
2. Brief Discussion of the Prior Art
One of the most serious problems facing adolescents and adults is the consumption of drugs and alcohol, resulting in a dramatic increase in prison population and a high percentage of drug and alcohol-related traffic accidents. Therefore, additional avenues of informing the public in general, and young people in particular, of the dire and often tragic consequences of drug and alcohol abuse are constantly being sought.
It is well known that a person learns more readily when the person wants to learn and participates in an active learning experience. When the learning experience takes the form of a competitive game, the person often learns more rapidly and more permanently.
Numerous board games have heretofore been suggested as a means for obtaining physiological and personality information about the players, as well as for developing communication skills. Typical of such prior art board games is the psychotherapeutic testing game, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,594, which is designed to create a game playing atmosphere between a psychotherapeutic tester and a patient. The psychotherapeutic testing game includes a chance selection device and a plurality of cards bearing psychologically-oriented questions which elicit responses from the patient. The patient's responses determine an award related to the game apparatus and also yields psychological information to the tester.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,273,337 discloses a board game apparatus which promotes communication between parents and children regarding human sexuality. The apparatus includes a plurality of player tokens, a game board having a closed continuous path defined by a plurality of playing spaces, and a plurality of decks of cards. Each deck of cards contains questions concerning the field of human sexuality, the questions varying in degree of difficulty from deck to deck.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,956 provides an apparatus and method for learning about relationships and personalities among a group of players or participants, such as which player in the group is better known to the other players and which player knows the other players better. The apparatus includes tokens to be moved on a board in combination with a plurality of colored cubes, scoring sticks, secret answer wheels and question cards. Movement of a player's token, as well as scoring, is controlled in part by chance and in part by the player's knowledge of the other participants, as revealed by the player's secret answers to questions concerning the feelings and intentions of the participants.
An educational game for student and graduate nurses is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,372,559. The game provides playing pieces, called "clients", and a playing board having a plurality of contiguous areas around the perimeter of the board with additional areas in the center of the board. Two decks of cards govern admission to and play on the playing board, each card of the decks having a medical question with multiple choice answers on one side and a single correct answer on the other side. The object of the game is to move a player's client around the perimeter of the board, through an acute stage, an intermediate stage and a convalescent stage of illness, and back to the community through a correct selection and use of medical alternatives.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,966 discloses a board game apparatus based on possible experiences of a person who consumes liquor. The board game apparatus includes a board having a pathway upon which a player's token is advanced by roll of a pair of dice from a start/finish location through various stops, each stop representing a liquor establishment where liquor might be consumed. At each stop a card drawn from the deck specifies an amount of liquor consumed along with an elapsed time. The amount of liquor consumed and the elapsed time in each of the liquor establishments represented by the stops are recorded on a display board. Information from the display board is transferred to a blood alcohol chart which indicates the player's sobriety or drunkenness. If a player is found to be drunk, his sober player token is changed to a token indicating drunkenness and a police car is put into play by use of a second pair of dice. The police car has no effect on a sober player token but can force a drunken player token to go around the board once more.
While numerous board game apparatus have heretofore been developed for educating the players on a particular subject matter, a need remains for providing educational materials to people on the consequences of the recreational use and abuse of drugs and alcohol. It would be highly desirable if such educational materials could be conveyed to a person by participation in a competitive game. It is to such a means for educating persons about the consequences of the recreational use and abuse of drugs and alcohol that the present invention is directed.